FOOD

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Ken's Asian Taste Restaurant - Lobster with Noodles - WOW!

Photo taken w/ the iPhone 3Gs

Ken's Asian Taste Restaurant is an unsuspecting joint that has certainly made my tastebuds tingle, my stomach growl and my mouth crave for more Lobster with noodles ...

I don't even know the name of this dish, and not sure how YOU can order it, other than say Lobster with rice noodles to the waiter, or you can do what we did, which was show them a photo of it! Yes, we, or I should say, my good friend/mentor, who moonlights as a foodie for his second profession -- Ken -- showed the manager/waiter a picture of the dish and he instantly knew what it was (ha ha, thanks Ken!). I love it! Sometimes when I'm traveling, I have to play a game of charades for them to understand (yes imagine me gesturing and jumping up and down), but lucky for my friends, I saved them from the embarassment as Ken had a picture of it on his iPhone.

So what is this dish? 2 Lobsters with rice noodles (you can order it with vermicelli noodles as well). The dish is marvelously flavored with a lot of garlic, five spice, green onions and who knows what else ... but all I have to say is that this was a delightful dish (and the highlight of my day). Other than the fabulous flavors spewing from this dish, another highlight was the soupy-ness, or the broth that accompanied the noodles. If the noodles were dry, this dish would have been less appealing, but because there was a broth base that made the noodles sort of -- slurpy and wet -- it worked! As for the lobsters, "they are fresh", as one eater proclaimed as he pointed out the pinkish juice that emerged from a claw that he picked up. But, that wasn't our only good fortune, one of the lobsters was pregnant and we had lobster roe on our plate as well... My dad used to say, you are lucky if there are "roe" in your dish -- we usually had it in crab -- but nonetheless, I felt lucky for having been introduced to this dish! SO thank you ken!

And now, I am sharing this dish with you (sharing is caring)! If you find yourself in Chinatown with a few friends, I would highly recommend visiting Ken's Asian Taste Restaurant for an order of Lobster with Noodles for $29.95! Its a fun and plentiful dish to order with friends and you won't be disappointed.

As for the other items at this restaurant -- I can only vouch for the items I ate, which also include:

Clams with black bean sauce - ok, not fabulous (forgot which type of clams we ordered, but the razor clams were not available until nightime)

Dim Sum Entrees included: Chicken Feet (tasty and flavorful); Turnip Cake (a bit cold, but had good chunks of chinese sausage - definitely ask for the Oyster Sauce to accompany this dish); Shrimp Dumpling (aka Ha Gao -- think it was steamed for too long since the texture of the skin was spongy); Shrimp and Pork Dumpling (aka Siu Mai -- had good clumps of shrimp, flavoring decent; and again, think it may have been steamed for too long).

One last thing I would like to note is the space... They have two floors, though, I would prefer to sit on the top floor as there are more people and food options (i.e. waiters showcasing dim sum options) there. In my opinion, the ambiance is less important in Asian restaurants, so long as the food is good; however, I will note that restaurant had a sense of "cleanliness" to it. In addition, this restaurant was packed for lunch with a lot of locals on a weekday -- so that's always a good sign to me.

Before I sign off -- I know this is repetitive, but I would highly recommend the Lobster with Noodles dish to everyone. Download a copy of my picture and show it to the manager and he'll know what to do next. If you have more than three people, the dish is enough, however, I would suggest ordering a few other dishes just to get a good sampling of the food at the restaurant.